mama, just killed a man
by boldpens
Summary: Kurt kills but doesn't feel guilty, so of course he feels guilty. And oh, there's a playlist. /some klaine/ /oneshot/


**mama, just killed a man**

Alright, so the world would call Kurt morbid, but he had this playlist. He called it his _I Killed A Man _playlist, and whenever he had a little trouble dealing he would place his earbuds in and retreat. Somewhere in the middle of the lifting melodies, the gritty tones, the edgy lyrics, he was reminded that hey - _it wasn't all that bad._ And okay, if you had told him a few months ago that _Bohemian Rhapsody _would help him recenter after he had felt the soft give of flesh to sharp glass, Kurt would have sneered artfully in your face. Or he would have said, _what finally pushed me over the edge?_ but those were private thoughts, confined between earbuds or whispered into the empty night.

Really though, the whole situation was a shade of insane Kurt wasn't quite used to but had been forced to adapt his morals around. Or rather, adapt his reactions by how people expected, because when your boyfriend insisted on non-stop cuddles to comfort you (okay, okay, Kurt wasn't really complaining about that) and your step-brother brought _you_ the warm milk, clumsily offering his ear, you really had to act torn up about stabbing some guy in the heart. He had always thought he was a pretty good actor, but this took the cake for sure. Because see - Kurt didn't feel bad. And that's where the troubled expressions came from, the playlist, the night-whispers. _Kurt didn't feel bad. _And he felt bad about not feeling bad.

Kurt tried to feel tortured, he really did. He went to the man's funeral, attended by one tearful set of wispy parents and a bored-looking cousin. The news crews lurking outside the graveyard outnumbered the guests, and Kurt thanked his sense of fashion for placing him in a tasteful yet stylish mourning outfit which really helped emphasize the noble hero thing the town, the state had branded him with. _Oh that Kurt Hummel, tormented and unique, killed someone in self-defense to save his family. Poor boy, he lost his mother at a young age you know, so much __**death**__ ..._ Kurt didn't want to be seen as a hero, not really. He wanted to be known for his talent, not a lucky strike in the heat of the moment.

The scrutiny made it worse. If Kurt didn't bow his head and let his shoulders shake at the funeral, people would start to wonder, wouldn't they? _Taking it awfully easy. Went to mock that family maybe ..._ and soon everyone would forget that the dead man was a home invader and just generally a creep - and Kurt was tired of being turned on, being hissed at. His status as hero and killer had won him respect in school, in town, and Kurt wasn't going to waste that. So he looked appropriately distraught at the funeral, while inside he tore himself up over _why_ he didn't feel distraught.

It was a tiring circle, and, well, Kurt was getting _tired._ Why couldn't he just know for sure, a yes or no, about whether there was something seriously wrong with him? Because there must be.

No teenage kid picked up a shard of glass and slammed it through inches of muscle, flesh and scraped by bone to pierce the heart. No teenage kid did that, then step back and smile at his family and say _well he went down fast_. His dad, Carole, Finn, Blaine ... they didn't talk about that night, because they were so busy _not_ talking about it while silmutaneously setting up openings to bring it up - which no one did. Kurt felt they were are a lot more bothered by this then he was, and yeah, sometimes Kurt woke up with his jaws fused shut and bathed in sweat like sticky blood, surfacing from nightmares where he didn't pierce the heart and the guy kept on coming ... but he was generally okay. And maybe his family, his boyfriend, they knew he was okay but didn't say anything, desperately plundering for some angst.

Kurt had refused a therapist just on the knowledge that after one conversation with him, the shrink would label Kurt a sociopath and have him shipped off to the nearest asylum. (On a side note, _They're Coming to Take Me Away_ was on his playlist for this very reason.) And you know, maybe that was a good plan. Because Kurt would be on his knees, not begging for anyone to stay but instead balancing on the edge of vomit in front of the toilet, body shuddering with the fear that one day, _some day_, he would kill again and he wouldn't have a shield of self-defense to hide behind, knight stripped naked.

So he tested himself. He was making dinner, chicken, and it didn't have the right consistency but he stabbed it anyways, same angle, same thrust. It didn't do anything for him though, so he closed his eyes and pictured the attacker, and felt a little self-satisfaction but otherwise nothing. So he imagined a jock he hated, and it was certainly catharic but there was no shivers of delight. He considered the sexual aspect killings like these were supposed to have, and he thought of some particularly attractive guy he had seen at the mall or something, and struck home - and nothing. Mostly he just felt a little silly, stabbing the chicken again and again. This did nothing to comfort him though - because it meant this illness, this thirst for blood, was so hidden in his psyche that he wouldn't be able to cut it out.

This was when he retreated to his playlist, doing his homework while he tapped his foot along with the beat, occasionally planning out what name he wanted the media to call him when he became a serial killer. That sort of morbid casualness, it was all that kept Kurt together when he got in those moods. It was that or wonder, wonder if he would slide a blade home in Blaine's chest next (and that would really make him vomit, fingers scrabbling against the bathroom tile) wonder _why_ this was happening to him. Couldn't he have just hated killing that criminal so he wouldn't have to hate himself?

Maybe he should talk to someone. A therapist, or his dad, or Carole. Open up to Finn over warm in that welcoming night, because the darkness had a way of absorbing secrets so they didn't shock too badly. Tell Blaine how he felt, because he had always been honest with Blaine until now. The thing was, Kurt was just so _scared_. Scared they wouldn't give him a chance to promise not to hurt anyone again, scared they would reject him, scared they'd send him away ... scared that he wouldn't be there to protect them anymore, if something like this happened again.

Kurt was nauseatingly, nightmare-inducing _scared_ and he couldn't tell anyone. Because how do you explain that, how do you sit your loved ones down and say _guys, I've replayed the stabbing a hundred thousand times and I just don't care. There's something wrong with me, I'm sick, I'm wrong._ Especially when those loved ones had been like Kurt's and always told him there was _nothing_ wrong with him. And Kurt really, really didn't want to disappoint them. So he kept quiet and suffered by himself, scrolling his playlist and retreating to the momentary peace of his music, like he always had.

**the end**

**thoughts?**


End file.
